


Cell towers.

by palmettomonsters (queentangerine)



Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2016-06-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:56:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7206746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queentangerine/pseuds/palmettomonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which new Foxes are a nuisance, and Neil fantasizes about running but calls Andrew instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cell towers.

So it goes like this: a sneaky circling of wolves around Neil, biding their time before an attack. It’s that wolf in sheep’s clothing sort of nonsense that he knows better than to fall for, but this time, the animals in question are foxes. Pups, brought from the wild, and they still need rearing before they can fight like they mean it. They’re supposed to listen to Neil, not try to hunt him, but they don’t. He can only say _fuck you_ so many times before it loses its edge. Maybe it already has.

It’s fine. Neil had been ready for this. Steeled his nerves ahead of time so their bite wouldn’t break, but he hadn’t been counting on the reverberations.

Objectively, he’d known that there would be new Foxes, but he hadn’t thought past what it would mean for the team to what it would mean for him personally. He can handle their bullshit aggression on the court. But it’s the trickle-down from the name _Wesninski_ in the headlines that stings. Reporters and overzealous fans that can be easily disarmed and dismissed versus the self-proclaimed _entitled_ curiosity of the ever-present teammates. Different beasts.

So he grits he teeth and keeps going. It shouldn't be getting to him. It _wouldn’t_ be, except that it’s every day, except for those few well-timed knife twists, except that he can see the seasoned Foxes growing annoyance at the incessant remarks, too. An added layer of well-meant pestering that is such nonetheless. Between practices and classes he gets phone calls from Dan about how to address this through creative captaining techniques. He gets texts from Kevin along the lines of _but the real important thing here is Exy so for the love of god just focus_. He gets alternating messages from Nicky and Renee to _keep his chin up_.

Neil gets blank stares form Andrew. This is as much as he expected, and at least they come after Andrew has allowed him a few minutes of ranting when they find themselves alone on the roof.

Andrew says, “Ignore it.” _Because pretending you don’t have problems makes them go away._ Yeah right. They both know better than most that this isn’t true.

Neil tries an afternoon of forced bonding – just him and the freshman – that falls flat. Letting in the original Foxes was one part accident and one part necessity. Making friends without meaning too and then Baltimore, the point of no return. Whatever. This isn’t like that.

He doesn’t want to do it again. He _just did this_. Just went through the ringer with the FBI and then again with Foxes and his muscles are still sore. He thinks he should be allowed a choice this time. 

He sits hunched on the ground outside the stadium, reveling in the failure, and pulls his phone from his pocket to call Andrew. To complain or for a distraction, he doesn’t know, but his thumb freezes over the call button. Because he’s only called Andrew once before, and this isn’t like that.

There’s been no conscious effort not to call for other reasons, it’s just they’re together so often that the need has yet to arise. It could be now, and it would be fine, but he can’t help but notice how exactly this matches the first call: Neil slumped on the concrete outside the stadium, unable to deal with his co-captain woes. But there’s no running this time – FBI rules – but also because Neil _doesn’t want to_. This isn’t like that.

So he shoots Andrew a disgruntled and incoherent text ( ~~this much is safe~~ ) that he knows will go ignored, and calls Matt instead. Running from his problems when it would mean leaving things behind would be stupid, and this isn’t like that.

Until it is sort of like that. This is the _sneaky_ part of that circling. From zero to sixty in a second or whatever that is, flipping a switch. There, but turned off, for now, just waiting for opportunity.

Neil never even liked running, but it’d been ingrained in him, now some sort of nervous tick disguised as survival instinct. Instead of fidgeting in his seat he drops everything. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to this time, but even so he starts to entertain the thought. This is the thing about reflexes.

Need and want don’t have to be the same thing, in the same way that feeling something and knowing something don’t have to be the same, either.

It gets to the point where Neil has his duffle packed, tucked in the dresser next to his safe, so he could grab it and his binder in less than a minute and be gone. He could, but he won’t, he tells himself.

If Andrew notices, he says nothing. A tiny part of Neil wishes he would. Wishes he would tell him to _stop_ , and _don't be such an idiot_. An even smaller part wishes that one of the days he goes to obsessively double check the bag, it will have been unpacked in his absence.

Then some Sunday morning it's just the two of them on the couch, doing homework. Or trying to do homework. Neil can't focus. His eyes are fogging over, and mind is racing, and every sound of the real world outside the window and from the hallway has him flinching, old habits. Andrew ignores it at first. Then he glances. Then he tells Neil to _stop_. Neil can't.

Neil takes out his phone and lays it on his open text book. He stares at it. Here it is, the only one reason for Neil to call Andrew: the condition on which he accepted the phone from him in the first place. _When you want to run, don’t_. The call more a symbol of defeat than an actual call. No, not defeat, a last line of defense, a cry for help, when the words are too rough on his throat. This is a system that proved to work, once, so he’s keeping it. Even if this is a different world now. ~~Is it so different?~~

He doesn’t want to run, but he can’t be here right now.

He glances at his keys sitting on his desk across the room, his bedroom door with the packed bag locked away inside. He opens the phone then flips it shut a second later. He can feel Andrew silently watching him. Neil opens the phone again and navigates to the favorites list, one name and number above the rest. He dials and he waits, four seconds he counts, until he hears Andrew's phone buzz somewhere beside him. It doesn't make him jump like the outside noises, it makes the breath that he didn't know he was holding release.

He doesn’t want to say it. It’s not that simple and he doesn’t know _how_ to say it. But he doesn’t have to. 

Andrew picks up and presses his phone to his ear, scoots over so he's closer to Neil and reaches up to grab the back of his neck in a vice grip, pulls his head down, face inches from his own.

Andrew says, “Neil."

They just look at each other, Andrew dead calm while Neil’s panic slowly subsides. Feeling each others breath and listening to it echoing through their phones, tinged with static, and with a half-second delay because the cell towers don't know what to do with the fact of the phones being only a foot apart.

Eventually, Neil let's his arm fall, realizing his ear is sore from pressing the phone to it. He hangs up. He wants to say sorry, but long ago - or what feels like it - Andrew had told him not to; he wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t let him say it.

Andrew doesn't move for a minute, but then he too lowers his phone, flips it closed and stands up, hand still lightly on Neil's neck.

Andrew says, "There's a car show in Charlotte."

They go for a drive. They sit in silence, wind streaming in through the half open windows. Neil takes a nap, and when he wakes up he sits leaning against the door so he can watch Andrew; the sunlight glowing in his hair, the way he looks so relaxed while he drives, his features smoothed out, hands resting lightly on the wheel. He flicks his eyes over to Neil for a second when he notices the staring, but for once he doesn’t tell him not to. Instead he frowns in a way that’s almost a smile, for Andrew. Or, at least, that’s how Neil chooses to see it. They stay like that for the rest of the drive, however long it is, but suddenly they’re in a parking lot, and Andrew’s getting out of the car, and Neil’s following him.

Why a car show? Why tempt and taunt the need to run with row after row of stationary vehicles? ~~What is Andrew’s fascination with beautiful and expensive cars, anyway?~~

But somehow it helps. The cars could move, but they don’t. Neil could run, but he won’t. Something about the illusion of movement.

The back of Andrew’s hand keeps brushing against Neil’s as they wander through the rows. He’s doing this on purpose. Neil is waiting for him to take a hold of his hand instead, but he doesn’t, and Neil isn’t going to be the one to make that choice.

Somehow, Neil feels like he can breathe again, but he’s not ready to leave yet. He just needed to be somewhere else for a little while, and maybe a little while longer, but Andrew’s pushing him back to the car. There’s a small group of people that gathered around to admire it, and Andrew just glares at them until they dissipate, _fucking car enthusiasts_.

It’s not quite getting dark yet, the sun hasn’t started going down but it’s right on the cusp, that golden hour where nothing seems entirely real. Golden like Andrew’s hair, and with that Neil is staring again. He could look away, and he should look away, because this time he can see the words don’t look at me already forming on Andrew’s lips.

So Neil turns his head before Andrew can let it out, closes his eyes instead but doesn’t fall asleep, and this time they do end up holding hands across the seat divider. And then Andrew starts talking, quietly. He’s not usually the one to start a conversation. Maybe it can’t really be called a conversation, it’s just Andrew talking, cataloging a few rare, brighter moments from his childhood, while Neil smiles and runs his thumb along the back of Andrew’s hand. For a moment Neil forgets why they’re out driving in the first place. Can’t think of anything but this right here.

And then they’re back and Fox Tower and Neil thinks that wasn’t enough time away, there’s still all this shit to deal with tomorrow. But Andrew doesn’t give him any time to dwell, just pulls him across the parking lot and up the stairs and into their room.

Kevin is gone. Neil assumes Andrew had something to do with that, because as soon as the bedroom door closes behind them, Andrew catches Neil’s chin in his hand.

“Yes or no?"

“Yes."

They kiss in the dark. Neither of them had bothered to reach for the light on the way in and now it doesn’t matter. They kiss, they change for bed, helping each other pull clothes off and on if only for a refusal to let go of each other. Andrew presses Neil onto the bed and lets Neil wrap himself around him, one hand in Andrew’s hair, the other on his waist. Andrew has one arm braced on the bed and the other hand, fingers digging into Neil’s chest, and neither of them pretend that Andrew isn’t trying to hold him there.

Andrew doesn’t say stay. He doesn’t have to, it would be repeating himself. That’s what the phone call was for, Andrew’s answering, their drive, their coming back.

Instead, he whispers Neil’s name as he kisses his neck, just below his ear.

He whispers it again, later, right as they’re about to drift off to sleep. _Neil Abram Josten_. His name fitting so neatly in Andrew’s mouth. This, if nothing else, is concrete.

They fall asleep tangled together; an oddity for them. Even if they wake up with space between their bodies, they fell asleep together.

Even if they don’t talk about any of this the next day. They don’t need to. It doesn’t matter.

Even if Andrew takes special care that day not to let Neil out of his sight. Neil notices, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t ask if it’s for Neil’s benefit for Andrew’s own. It doesn’t matter.

There’s no acknowledgement until that night, after practice. It was still ~~oh so~~ tough, the new Foxes refusing to release their bites, teeth still clamped down hard and stubborn. It isn’t any easier, but it’s okay. It’ll die down eventually. 

Andrew stays hanging around the locker room after everyone else has left, waiting. When he’s done changing, Neil stops just outside the door, watching Andrew where he leans against the wall, arms folded.

“I’m fine,” Neil says.

Andrew kicks himself off the wall and leaves. Neil follows. Maybe Neil catches what sounds like a mumbled _I hate you_ as Andrew pushes the door open, but it’s okay.

They both know Neil won’t say he’s fine anymore unless it’s true.

**Author's Note:**

> hang out with me on [tumblr](http://www.palmettomonsters.tumblr.com) and we can cry about foxes together


End file.
